We ran into each other on the street and we were both wearing white: white from head to toe. We said we looked as though we were going to be baptized. We found a pack of cigarettes that had been run over in the street. And the cigarettes were all white with a blue stripe around the butt, and we said her leg was like this cigarette since she was wearing long white jeans with blue sandals. And we said we were the Swiss Guard, for no apparent reason other than that we kept bringing up the rear while walking with a group of people who incidentally wore all black. And I said she would make an incredible actress. And I said “but you should only ever play one role.” Antigone from dawn till dusk, from now until the end.

She looked like a peach, her dress the color of the fruit. She was not plump and ripe like a peach ought to be, but she emitted a sweet scent. I could see her skin through her clothes, ripened by the sun and climate of her past. Her skin shimmered with glitter. I knew that she had perhaps applied a lotion that would proffer this effect, but I preferred to think of it as a natural state, as though she secreted molten gold. Her face was like an angel’s peach: feminine, young, juicy, sweet, fuzz. An angel that had not fallen but had jumped to earth. So when I went up to her she said four words “Speak of the devil,” and I was given three to respond and said “You got it,” she roared with laughter and made me feel sheepish but pleased.